Keeping the 'Brew' in Brewers
>> Thursday
Common sense and cool (foamy) heads have finally prevailed, at least in Milwaukee. The Brewers have decided to continue to allow alcohol in the clubhouse.
Some people, Jay Mariotti being one of them, feel like this is the equivalent of pissing on Josh Hancock's grave. Brewers players, like Chris Capuano, see it in a different light:
"For the most part they treat us like adults. There's no curfew on the road. You're expected to handle yourself professionally. Guys are not going to sit in the clubhouse and drink four and five beers and then drive. We would never do anything like that. But it's nice if a guy wants to have a beer after a game that the team is OK with it."
Amen. These bans have been completely knee-jerk reactions to appease fans and whiny sports columnists that climb onto a soapbox to try to sound like a concerned fan with a good sense of morals. It's in the same realm as the propositions that the NBA should ban players from going to clubs. On the surface, you say "How can that be bad?" But this is a potentially slippery slope, because it is a matter of whether professional sports leagues treat their players like people, or property. When you start taking away basic rights because a small percentage of players make dumb decisions, you are coming dangerously close to treating your players like property.
Like Cappy said, allowing your players to have a beer after the game (or in the fourth inning if you're a middle reliever with Roy Oswalt on the mound) is treating them like adults, and I'm sure that the Brewers' biggest sponsor had nothing to do with the decision. Regardless, hopefully more teams can take a page from the Brewers notebook and continue to allow their players the freedom to down a few suds after a game.
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6 comments:
1. You spelled sponsor wrong.
2. Some guy wrote an article for MSN.com yesterday that made a really good point about this whole banning alcohol in the clubhouse business. It's not about the damn beer, it's about the car. These guys are in no real different position than any other mature adult, you can't just pull the plug on the booze because they can just go to a bar and get equally as pissed anywhere else (I realize that this is the pot calling the kettle black). Here's the article, for anyone who cares: http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/6793188
3. Damn you for getting me excited when I started to read this post because I thought for some reason that the Brewers were bringing back the giant Keg and mug. Damn you.
1. Fixed
2. Good article; it makes a lot of points that I was thinking, but didn't take the time to articulate.
3. I'll be content if they bring back playoff baseball.
Nathan, I agree that this was a knee-jerk reaction. As I wrote in my blog post on the same subject, this is the proverbial closing of the barn door after the horse is out. No action -- or inaction, as the case may be -- will bring back Josh Hancock.
The plain and simple truth, which is the same today as it was the day before Hancock's death, is that people need to be responsible about how they drink.
As long as Ozzie is manning the Sox ship, I don't think beer will be banned in the Sox clubhouse. He doesn't want have to sneak the stuff in himself.
In a way, the bans are almost an insult to Hancock's legacy. It's turned him into that guy that had to go and blow it for everyone.
As for athletes not becoming property of franchises and leagues, I think that ship sailed along time ago.
Why isn't anyone talking about the quarter ounce and pipe he had in his car?
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